This invention relates to dental instruments, and in particular to dental instruments for testing the various properties of a tooth and the investing periodontium.
When a dentist leaves dental school and enters actual practice, he often finds that various simple and mundane tests can be performed to determine the vitality of a tooth and health of the periodontium, and that such tests are often more practical and expeditious than the corresponding methods that he was taught in dental school. Unfortunately, commercially available dental instruments are usually designed according to the dictates of the dental school, rather than the practical needs of the dentist. Hence, he often lacks specific instruments designed to perform the practical tests which he himself has devised.
ONE OF THE TESTS OFTEN USED BY DENTISTS IN PRACTICE IS SIMPLY PUSHING ON THE TOOTH TO SEE WHETHER IT MOVES OR NOT, THUS TESTING THE QUALITY OF THE ROOTS AND INVESTING OSSEOUS STRUCTURES. Most dentists perform this mobility task with their fingers, or with the butt of an instrument normally having an entirely unrelated function. Another test used by dentists in their practice is to tap the tooth lightly with a metallic instrument, looking for a hyperresponse from the patient, to determine whether the interior of the tooth is inflamed and requires excavation or whether the external periapical area is inflamed or abscessed making it necessary to perform endodontic treatment. For this test, the dentist simply uses the side of one of his dental instruments.
Another problem which the dentist often encounters in practice is that dental instruments are designed for precision rather than convenience. This is particularly true of periodontal probes, which have accurate indicia which the dentist must read to determine the depth to which the probe has been inserted. However, the dentist only requires knowledge of the approximate depth of the probe rather than the exact depth to the fraction of a millimeter. Hence, reading such indicia is inconvenient and to a large extent unnecessary.